Binti, The Complete Trilogy: Binti ; Home ; The Night Masquerade

by Nnedi Okorafor

  She took his hand with her uninjured one. Then she quickly let go and her eyes fell back to Binti.

  “We want to take her,” Mwinyi said, after she’d been quiet for several moments. “Into space. That’s where she always said she felt most . . . natural.” When Binti’s mother didn’t say anything, Mwinyi continued, “She once told me that she thought she needed to go to the rings of Saturn; that a vision was calling her there. That’s where I think we should take her.”

  He waited, holding his breath.

  “Why’d you come here?” she finally asked, without looking up. “Why couldn’t you both have just stayed there?”

  Mwinyi sighed and sat down across from her. He looked at her puffy red downcast eyes and then slowly reached forward and took the hand that was not holding Binti’s remaining hand. “I didn’t want to come,” he admitted. “It wasn’t safe. And even as I rode out with her, I felt something was off . . . with her.” He looked cautiously at her mother. She still looked down at her daughter. He continued. “She’s a master harmonizer, but what harmony did she bring? I couldn’t understand her. She seemed broken.” He held his breath. But now that he had started, he might as well finish. “But Binti was . . . was more than a harmonizer, I realized. There is no word for her yet. I knew she’d do something amazing.”

  “But she didn’t,” her mother said, looking up at him. “She failed.” Her face was naked as tears ran from her eyes.

  “She didn’t fail, Khoush and Meduse did,” Okwu said, from behind Mwinyi.

  “Binti did what she was born to do. Even the most ancient of my clan could not have done what she did, been what she was, carried it as she did, and understand, my people are old and advanced.” He waited and when she didn’t speak her mind, he continued, “You Himba know us as the Desert People. We are—”

  “The Enyi Zinariya,” she said. “I know. I married one of you . . . who also was a master harmonizer.” She looked down at Binti. “I always knew that she was meant to do something great. We knew when she got into Oomza Uni, though she didn’t know we knew. I knew when she agreed to the interview. Her father was so angry when she left . . . but I . . . I wasn’t. I understood.” She leaned down and kissed Binti on the forehead and then her shoulders slumped. She looked up at Mwinyi, waiting.

  “Can we take her?” he asked again.

  “How?”

  “By neither Meduse ship nor Khoush,” Mwinyi said. “Don’t worry about that.”

  “To the rings of Saturn?”

  He nodded. “It’s where she wanted to go next.”

  She stared at Mwinyi for a long time and he did not look away. This was part of their conversation and Mwinyi relaxed into it, letting Binti’s mother in. When she finally looked away, her tears had stopped and she smiled weakly to herself. “The women will have to prepare her, first,” she said. “But, yes. Take my daughter where she wanted to go.”

  * * *

  Binti’s brothers erected a tent around her, so that no one would see. Then the women spent the rest of the day preparing Binti, right there on the spot where she’d fallen. The chief of surgery, a stern woman who’d tied back her waist-length otjize-heavy locks, repaired Binti’s insides as best she could and sewed up her chest, and the opened wound left where her arm had been. They bathed her with water from the Sacred Well. They massaged her flesh with sweet-smelling oil and then applied Binti’s mother’s otjize. And lastly, one of the seamstresses presented the “homecoming” dress she’s sewn for Binti as the other women worked. The long dress was the red-orange color of the richest otjize, with a light blue sash that the seamstress refused to explain.

  When Binti was ready, she was placed on top of the costume of the Night Masquerade. Because so many had seen it, those in the secret society would need to create a new, different one. And both Chief Kapika and Dele felt that it belonged to Binti now, anyway. Binti was change, she was revolution, she was heroism. She was more Night Masquerade than anyone had ever been. Then the chief called a ceremony and had a girl climb a palm tree and cut a large leaf. The traditional leaf was sent from home to home, though messages about it via astrolabe traveled faster.

  The evening was windy again. Another electrical storm thrashed itself out somewhere deep in the desert, but close enough to give the air a tangy charged smell. Dele spoke the words of dedication and love to what was probably all of Osemba. And as he spoke of his best friend, his voice loud and strong, from the west, in Khoushland, the distant boom and crack of Khoush and Meduse arsenal finding purchase distracted many. The darkening sky flickered as the Khoush and Meduse battled in space above.

  All the while, Mwinyi and Okwu stayed on the outskirts of it all. These rituals were not for them. Not really. These were not their people and, in Mwinyi’s opinion, much of this was done out of guilt. As they’d waited, Mwinyi had spoken with everyone back home and then he’d stopped because they were so angry and disgusted with the Himba and he didn’t really want to hear them express what he was working not to feel. He’d only told Binti’s grandmother of the plan.

  “Take her home,” was all she said.

  Come evening, everyone had said their goodbyes and all that remained were Binti’s parents, siblings, Mwinyi, and Okwu. Boxes of packaged foods, including dates, green plantains, flour, stacks of a dried edible weed, boxes of roasted grasshoppers Okwu liked to eat, and other supplies were stacked beside Okwu. They were quiet as they stood around Binti’s body in the dark. Mwinyi walked away from them all and stood on what was left of the Root. It still smelled of smoke here and some of the pieces crumbled beneath his feet as he walked and listened.

  Through his rough feet he saw many things of the past, when the Root had stood. He saw Binti’s mother singing mathematical equations to a large grasshopper that had flown into the cellar, holding her hand out for it to land, and watching it slowly fold its beautifully decorative wings as if to show her its mathematical pattern. He saw Binti arguing with her sister so many years ago about a dance and her sister laughing and rolling her eyes. He saw Binti’s father sneak into the cellar to use the zinariya to speak to his mother.

  Mwinyi opened his eyes and took a deep breath. He loved being able to “ground,” absolutely loved it. The universe was a singing connection of stories and he could listen to that song anywhere he went now. “I’ll never wear shoes again,” he whispered to himself.

  He looked to the stars and then smiled. It was time. And sure enough, there were the lights. She was coming. He looked to the group; several of Binti’s sisters had begun to cry. Binti’s father was standing with his head in his hands. And her mother was looking mournfully at Mwinyi.

  Shrimplike in its shape, the Miri 12 luminesced a deep purple blue in the night, with pink highlights running around the windows of its front. But this wasn’t Third Fish. This Miri 12 was nowhere near as large, barely the size of the Root when the Root had been intact. This was Third Fish’s baby, New Fish. She zipped swiftly around them in a large circle, playfully blowing them all with warm air, though remaining careful not to blow dust on Binti’s body.

  “Praise the Seven,” Mwinyi whispered.

  He’d called Third Fish last night when he’d walked out into the desert from the Osemba House. The great elephant Arewhana, who’d taught him so much (including how to call large animals from afar), would have been proud. Unlike Binti, Mwinyi hadn’t been so confident that things would turn out well with the truce. And so he’d used his harmonizing skill to reach out to Third Fish. The first time had been yesterday, as he stood near the lake. Surprisingly she responded in her deep soft voice. She said she’d help if he needed help, that she was nearby. All he’d have to do was call.

  And he’d called. And Third Fish had sent her child to take this sad journey.

  * * *

  The goodbyes were quick.

  Binti’s brothers had carefully picked up her body and taken her into New Fish. So
ft blue lights on the soft ship floor guided them to where New Fish wanted her kept. Mwinyi assured them that this was fine, and no one questioned the ship’s decision. In actuality, Mwinyi knew as little as any of them, aside from what the ship told him in its strange voice. But he was struggling with the very idea of leaving Earth, so the smoother and faster this departure went, the better. Mwinyi took one step onto New Fish, stopped, rubbed his now throbbing temples, and put his sandals right back on. Best to deal with his first experience of leaving Earth before anything else.

  The room New Fish led them to was one of its upper breathing rooms, a place full of green leafy Earth plants that were just taking root in the newly born creature. The floor here was a soft, almost raw-looking pink and this was where New Fish told Mwinyi they should set Binti. Mwinyi immediately thought of Binti’s grandmother’s room where she kept so many plants she’d discovered and nurtured. The smell here was wet sand during rare rains, water-filled leaves, the ozone smell after thunderstorms, and the soil Binti’s grandmother collected from the bottom of wells and used to pot plants. It was fresh and full of life here.

  Okwu had squeezed itself into the room, but moved out of it a moment later. “She loved this place in the Third Fish,” it told Mwinyi and Binti’s brothers as they put her down. “She said she liked the damp, the warmth, and the smell. All I smell are microbes.” Then it left to explore the rest of the ship.

  Binti’s brothers Omeva and Bena didn’t linger either. They clearly wanted to leave the room, to get away from their little sister’s body. Binti’s mother had to be taken away by Binti’s father before the ship took off, for she’d begun to tear at her clothes and had even torn one of her locks out. The sisters had started to keen and sing a mournful song that Mwinyi never wanted to hear again and the other Himba people only stood there staring, still in shock about all that had happened in the last twenty-four hours.

  Mwinyi remained in the room for a while longer, then he left, and the door slid shut behind him.

  CHAPTER 8

  Space Is the Place

  “I’m glad to leave Earth,” Okwu said. It exhaled a large cloud of gas as it looked out the window.

  Mwinyi still clung to the pillar in the middle of the pilot chamber. He had been born and raised in the desert and never had he dreamed of leaving the Earth. He’d been happy protecting his people when they went on journeys across the desert and communing with the various peoples of the desert, from fox to dog to hawk to ant. His life had been simple; however, the moment Binti entered his life, he’d known that simplicity was over.

  He would never be able to describe what it felt like to sit strapped to one of New Fish’s strangely molded chairs and leave the Earth. Even an hour later, he wasn’t able to speak. Okwu seemed to understand this, for it left Mwinyi alone as it hovered near one of the wall-size windows in New Fish’s cockpit. Okwu hadn’t needed to strap itself down and didn’t seem to be affected by the change in air pressure or gravity as the ship balanced out its insides to reflect an Earth-like atmosphere.

  When Mwinyi did speak, it was to New Fish.

  After? it asked, hours later as Mwinyi slept in the large room near New Fish’s top called the Star Chamber. It felt like a vibration on his back that formed words he could understand in his mind.

  Mwinyi had chosen this room because its ceiling was all window and he could rest on his back and look into space in a way similar to how he looked into the sky when he went off into the desert alone back home. He’d been asleep on the floor, which was so soft that he didn’t need his mat. He rolled over, resting his hands on the purple luminescent floor. “After what?” he said aloud.

  After Saturn. After we set her free.

  “Oh,” he said, his shoulder slumping as it all came back to him. The deep exhausted sleep he’d been in gave him respite from Binti’s death and the fact that he’d just left his home without mentally preparing to do any such thing. “I . . . Okwu says we should go to his school. Oomza Uni.”

  That is far.

  “I know.”

  What do you want?

  He sighed. “It’s fine. What do you want?”

  The ship vibrated, the ceiling creaking and the floor flickering with stripes of blue purple and pink. Glee. Mwinyi smiled. I want to fly, New Fish said. Go far.

  Mwinyi lay on his belly, his hands still pressed to New Fish. “Can I go back to sleep now?”

  Yes. But . . . no. Will you please tell me about Binti? My mother told me much. You tell me things too.

  And so it was an hour before Mwinyi went back to the escape of sleep, as he told New Fish all he knew about Binti. He even told New Fish how much he loved her and finished by surprising himself. He did want to go to Oomza Uni. It was far from the home he wanted to return to, but it was where a part of Binti also lived. He told New Fish that he wanted to meet her friends and her mathematics professor. He wanted to see where she collected the clay she used for otjize. And when he finally did lie on New Fish’s soft welcoming flesh, he slept even more deeply than before and the dreams he had were full of beautiful flashing colors and a soothing hum.

  * * *

  Neither Mwinyi nor Okwu could bring themselves to go into that room. As the days passed and they got closer to Saturn, the idea became less and less savory. For Mwinyi, he could only imagine what her body looked like or how she smelled in that warm jungly room full of plants, soil, and according to Okwu, microbes.

  For Okwu, opening that room meant it was time to set Binti free. Neither Okwu nor its fellow Meduse, who were most of the time thirsty with war, wanted to send this peaceful girl human on a journey on which they could not join her. And Okwu couldn’t bear to part with its partner. Not at this time, when things had gone so far.

  Nevertheless, when the equivalent of three days had passed and New Fish excitedly told Mwinyi that they were approaching Saturn’s ring in an hour, it was time to face reality.

  It’s time, New Fish excitedly rumbled.

  Mwinyi, who’d been watching Saturn approach through the star room window, felt his spirits drop. New Fish had been moving and now she came to a stop, hovering in deep space. Waiting. Mwinyi found himself a bit annoyed with the ship’s overly cheerful demeanor, especially in the last twenty-four hours. But he said nothing. New Fish was a young living ship, a creature born to travel far and fast, and she was in space for the first time. How could he blame her for feeling free and adventurous?

  The walkway to the breathing chamber was narrow and the left side was lined with windows that showed the blackness outside. Okwu led the way.

  “I don’t know if I’m ready for this,” Mwinyi said.

  “No one is ever ready for such a thing,” Okwu said. “But we will send her on her way to her next journey.”

  Mwinyi saw Binti’s faces in his mind, with and without otjize. He felt his heart would break a second time.

  “Keep moving,” Okwu said.

  When they reached the breathing chamber, Okwu went right in. Mwinyi hesitated and then followed. He shut the door behind him. There, among the lovely plants, irrigated by clean waters that ran throughout New Fish to other breathing rooms, was Binti’s body wrapped in its red soft cloth, lying on the costume of the Night Masquerade.

  “She looks the same,” Okwu said and Mwinyi shivered, understanding exactly what it meant. Her body wasn’t bloating yet. Making an effort not to look at the unnerving Night Masquerade costume, Mwinyi put the transporter on the floor beside her body and powered it up. Within a second, it shivered and then buzzed softly. Binti’s wrapped body and the Night Masquerade costume lifted off the ground.

  Mwinyi sighed. “Okay,” he muttered, his voice thick. He gave her a gentle push and she smoothly glided toward the door. Mwinyi stopped her, looking at Okwu.

  “What?” it said. “We must do this fast.” It moved quickly toward the door. The door slid open and Okwu squeezed through. Ju
st outside the room, Mwinyi could see it let out a great blast of gas and inhale it back in. Then it let some out again, as it moved away from the door.

  Mwinyi looked down at Binti. He inhaled and held his breath; he didn’t want to smell her. He reached down. He had to see her face one more time. He did not care if it was bloated from death or even eaten by organisms that lived in the breathing room. He had to see her, to truly say goodbye. He flipped the red cloth aside. He stared. He let out his breath.

  Her okuoko were writhing like snakes.

  * * *

  I was staring back.

  CHAPTER 9

  Awake

  I was there.

  Then I opened my eyes.

  “It’s all mathematics,” I said.

  I don’t know where the words came from or why I said them. Mwinyi was staring at me, his mouth agape. “Life, the universe, everything.” I turned my head to the side and caught a glimpse of the Night Masquerade I lay on. The costume.

  Mwinyi reached a hand forward and pulled more of the cloth off me. I looked down too, as he gasped, jumping up and stumbling back. “Okwu!” he finally called. “Okwu! Get in here!”

  I looked toward the door where Okwu hovered, just outside the room. The moment I laid eyes on it, I saw it float quickly back, leaving a great cloud of its lavender gas as it went. Then I could hear it puffing it out, sucking it back in, puffing it out, sucking it in.

  “Binti,” Mwinyi whispered. “What . . . is this really you?” He had tears in his eyes, his lips were quivering. I’d been watching him move about the ship for hours. It had been as if I were swimming, rolling, floating in the tree. Then I was pulled into this place, this ship, and it had embraced me with delight. And I’d seen Okwu and Mwinyi moving about, both of them so sad, numb, and quiet. I’d followed them here and opened my eyes.